


so shake the dust and take me with you

by eudaimon



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:56:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not much it's something - mornings by the lake.  At least they're together, for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so shake the dust and take me with you

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small town AU which places them firmly in Appalachia, rather than in District 12. Originally written for the [Americana Ficathon](http://sister-wife.livejournal.com/15920.html) @ LJ.

They cut the coal out of the mountain and the dust gets everywhere, under fingernails and in eyelashes and grimy on the windshield as she swings up into the cab, her school bag on the cracked leather between them. He's been out of school for a year, working in the mine, crouching in the dark and listening for _fire in the hole_ and hoping that he doesn't have to run. What gets him through is this - that, above, there is clean air and she's waiting.

She skips school and lets one arm hang out of the open window, her wrist bouncing in the breeze. He snatches glimpses of her out of the corner of his eye. Her dark hair blows across her face and catches on her damp lips. She doesn't usually wear make-up; the colour of her skin's enough. They're a matched pair, drawn in black and grey and tan. The coal dust is everywhere - its in them, too.

At the creek, they leave the doors of the truck open and Johnny Cash filters throught the heavy air as he leans against sunwarmed metal and watches her slip out of her pretty city dress, faded flowered cotton that sits uneasily against loose-laced boots and the calluses on her hands. Her underwear is all white cotton, showing against her skin and he's wearing white cotton too. Sometimes, around her, he feels strange and sad, like none of this can last. Like there's got to be a world outside this hollow, but maybe both of them aren't going to see it?

But still, there's this - skinny dipping and sharing caged beer, warm from being in the truck with him but her mouth is cool and damp.

They slip into the water together, his hand grazing the length of her thigh, the spot where her breast melts into her side. It's her that pushes it further, her hand between hi legs, cupping through a layer so thin that it might not even be there at all. His breath catches. 

For years, he's felt like he can't quite keep up with her.  
But he tries.

She swims like a fish. He's good, but slightly more clumsy. He sinks like a stone, cross legged to sit on the silted bottom.  
He feels clean for five minutes at a time, his lungs screaming for air and space and time.


End file.
